Day 1 = 2x20 with <5 min between @ ~95% of FTP
Day 2 = 1x20 @ 100-105% of FTP, essentially an all out TT effort
Day 3 = Rest or VERY EASY (ie 30-60 minutes at 50% of FTP)...all small ring.

Repeat, over, and over, and over. FTP is your current FTP, not your desired FTP. On day #2 insert VO2 work every other cycle with something like 5x5 @ 110-112% of FTP with 3-5 minutes rest.

Either don't run at all, or run only very easy, if you have to. I would not recommend running between workouts 1 & 2. You gotta rest.

Should have added that I am done with running (for now) and swim 2x as a general recovery. I bike 5-6 days a week and average 160-220 miles.

Would this change your recomendations?

Wow, you went sub 60 for 40K on 2.88 W/Kg? You must be a bullet! Nice job there. How quickly you can add 15W depends on how long you have been at this/using pwr. If your first season, pretty easy with some long FTP intervals (20 mins) on the trainer/bike.

---

____________________________________
Fatigue is biochemical, not biomechanical.
- Andrew Coggan, PhD

I must be doing something horribly wrong....you weight 82 kg, and can go 40 kph off 236W?

Heck, I put out 14 more watts over an hour and there is the odd time that I break an hour and I'm assuming that at 62 kg, I must be punching a smaller hole in the wind....what's your height....maybe you are smaller and thicker and more aero!

Why isn't anyone recommending intervals at ~VO2 power?

(When I read the question I assumed the OP was already doing threshold work...and of course plenty of z2-3 time)

I did! :-)


this should be done in lieu of the 20 minutes at 100-105%

Is that three consecutive days or do you rest in between each?

Three consecutive days. People who want to see more VO2 work in there are under-estimating just how hard that block is.

I was kind of wondering the same thing. I haven't attempted to break 40kph in a TT, but at ~4 W/kg I seriously doubt that I can nail it with any sort of regularity (if at all). Either I'm riding like a parachute, or this guy's 40k TT was straight downhill. Perhaps a misprint by the OP? 3.88 W/kg? That would be somewhat realistic for a rider that's just under 61kg.

---

"The right to party is a battle we have fought, but we'll surrender and go Amish... NOT!" -Wayne Campbell

I might do a bike focus for 3-4 months after race season in an attempt to raise my FTP. I would still want to do 2-3 easy runs a week as well as my regular swims. How would you suggest modifying your bike plan in the context of this additional workload? How about a 4 day cycle:

Day 1 = 2x20 with <5 min between @ 95% of FTP
Day 2 = Rest or VERY EASY
Day 3 = 1x20 @ 100-105% of FTP (5x5 @ 110-112% of FTP every second cycle)
Day 4 = Rest or VERY EASY

I would definitely want to maintain my swim practices, not just for the social aspect, but because I find it helps my legs recover.

It can be really tough (mostly mentally) to stick with a schedule like that for 3-4 months. I'm confident you will get much, much stronger on the bike if you were to get through it though.

Day 2, where you have 1x20 at 100-105% FTP, is that really the only main set for that session? Basically, warm-up, the 1x20 min and then cool down? So the total workout time is about 1 hour? Am I understanding that correctly?

---

---

Fraser Bicycle | First Endurance

Check out my blog here | Twitter:@tmalis3

Yep, that is why it is ideally done at 105% of FTP, essentially and all-out 20 minute effort. If done correctly, then you likely won't be able to do another one anywhere near that effort. If you were really feeling good, then maybe rest 10 minutes and do one all out 5 minute effort. At that point, I'm sure you will want to be done.

Remember, you don't have to log long miles/hours in order to improve FTP. You just have to get the work done, AND you have to let yourself recover & absorb the training.

I agree, that is more difficult than many people think it is.

I would need a fairly good warm up before that too. Trying to go from 75% to 105 is difficult for me.

jaretj

If I did that for 3-4 months I would be hoping for 50-60W, not 15 :)

Is there a reason you are not in favor of the 6x5'x1' @ 105% FTP? Some have stated this is better than the 2x20's and considering you have the 1x20's in there also it may mix it up a bit.

---

Ride Scoozy Electric Bicycles
http://www.RideScoozy.com

After Day 3 do you go back to Day 1 or is there one or more rest days?

Also are all watts created equal? Is 53x11 @ 60 RPM the same as 53x15 @ 80 RPM provided the watts are the same?

Which is why he has 5x5'@110% every other week in place of the 1x20@105%.

That sounds cool. Is that six, five minute intervals with one minute rest?

---

CEO at TrainerRoad
Co-host of the Ask a Cycling Coach Podcast

I would think that 6X5'X1' @ 105% would be very difficult if not impossible for me to complete.

Now if the rest was 3 to 5 min like Flanagan suggested then it would be much better.

jaretj

for the 3 posts above me...

6x 5' @ 103-105% with 1 min rest is a FTP/LT interval

the 5' interval provided in the workout is a VO2 interval so they are not the same. To be fair I have not done the 6x5' with 1 min rest myself but have heard from others they have seen more improvement with that then the 2x20's. If it were me instead of alternating the 1x20 & 5x5 with 3-4min rest i would alternate 5x5 with 1 min rest and 5x5 with 3-4min rest at different intensities. It is hard for me to mentally grasp another 20 min workout the day after doing 2x20's.

---

Ride Scoozy Electric Bicycles
http://www.RideScoozy.com

Ahh...missed that. Yup...that looks pretty good to me. I just know people who only do FTP and below work...and expect to keep making gains. Without the VO2 work, you're leaving something on the table.

Looks like I'm doing something horribly wrong, too. 6ft, 85kg, 291w for the 20 minute test. Best 40k (by almost 2 minutes over previous) 60:54. On a fairly flat course, but with wind.

Got a Transition, moved forward and down and am right at 25 mph for 35k. Unfortunately, I have to miss the regular 40k TT this year.

Just wait'll next year!

How long can you do this before your improvement tapers off?

Don't you need a large base (perhaps early season?) before you start this type of program? Or can you just jump into doing it?

It's basically a daniels cruise interval...

:)

Billat's work in her lab was equal rest for pVo2max. The rest % was only important when doing 30"/30" as the "on" portion grew the "off portion %" didn't matter.

I can't imagine doing 5' at Vo2max and only getting 1 min recovery. I might die. We're talking 110-120% of FTP though not 105%. Haven't done much work at 105%, maybe that is just a slow death instead of a big boom.

Yea its funny how it all relates. I just wonder if people don't push themselves hard enough on the bike because they already have in their head what they do on the run when in fact cycling is non impact so you can do a lot more without wearing yourself down. People do hard intervals in the pool 5 days a week and don't think twice about it. You tell the posters above to do 2 hard days in a row on the bike and they are begging for rest before even doing it :)

---

Ride Scoozy Electric Bicycles
http://www.RideScoozy.com

Yeah, but I'd guess very few slowtwitchers need to go to VO2 work to get an extra 15 watts on FTP.

---

---

Erik
Strava

Like the OP, I'm also looking to improve my FTP over the next few months after I recover from IMLP. Just curious if you have actually stuck with a program like this and if so, how often did you retest your FTP in order to adjust your training zones and gauge fitness improvement?

The only way to add to your FTP in a short period of time is to work above threshold. Endurance and Tempo work will add to your FTP over a longer period of time but in the time frame you are talking about you need to be hitting the turbo/intervals and at more than 105% of FTP. The more you can do the better but in this range of work the chances of injury and exhaustion are high. You need to be leaving about a week before your planned race without any work in this range in order to let your muscles recover and replenish fuel sources. There are any number of permutations for the type of sessions you can do but try to do at least 1 sesssion a week something like 5 sets of 4 intervals at 400watts for 1 minute - 30 seconds on 30 seconds off. 2 minutes to recover between intervals. 400 watts sounds high but give it a go and see what happens ;-)

---

He who understands the WHY, will understand the HOW.

There is a really high recovery cost to doing workouts like you describe, especially if people aren't used to it. I would certainly recommend, especially if an athlete is going to do crit racing, but the workout as I read it is like this:

5x[4(30 ON, 30 OFF) + 2 Min Easy]

There are only 10 minutes of work in there. I like to see at least 20 minutes of "work" in a workout.

Given, the OP asked about FTP, I would recommend staying with FTP and VO2 Max intervals. The intervals you describe are called "microbursts". Generally, I like to see microbursts at the end of a threshold workout. For instance, at the end of the 20 minute TT in workout #2, you ride easy for 5-10', then launch into 10 minutes of micro-bursts (30 On, 30 Off). I didn't include them in my original response, because my hunch is doing FTP work on 20 out of 30 days in a month is more than most people are ready for.

First, fwiw, I thought John outlined an excellent approach.

Test frequency is an individual thing, imho. You'll likely find that you have to retest less and less over time. I almost never test myself. Increases in fitness become fairly self-evident so you should have a very good sense when an increase in FTP has occurred but don't jump the gun. There will be no one single indication. Look for a consistent increase in power that occurs over a period of time (eg 2 weeks) and then adjust your training/power zones accordingly.

Thanks, Chris

I did a really good job of sticking with it last season. This year has been tougher, due the craziness of planning our wedding and buying a house, combined with trying to figure out how to recover well from 1/2 road races. At this level, finding some balance between freshness and fitness is key, and I haven't quite figured out how to do it yet.

It worked really well though, and it helped to get me from Cat 4 to Cat 2 in around 4 months of racing. Its what I intend to go back to over the winter in order to lay the foundation to move to 1.

My idea for winter block (road cycling only!!!):

Monday = Very light
Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday = A mix of different FTP related training on the rollers indoors. One day might be 3x30 at 90%, another might be 3x15 @ 93-100%, and the other day would be 2x20@ 93-95%. Rest an additional day if I feel like crap.

Saturday & Sunday = The hard group rides. Saturdays are two rides with some race sim riding, total is ~100 miles. Sunday is similar but only one ride.

This lets you do the structured stuff during the week, and it lets you mentally have fun with wild card stuff during the weekends. It sure builds fitness pretty well.

He said 4-6 weeks. There is plenty of time to make gains in FTP even if intensity does not exceed 105% of FTP.

---

---

Erik
Strava

x2

I have always wondered.... if i do a workout does my body put "increase FTP" on a to do list that it does not reach until 6 weeks later, and then it says "ok i have time now to increase the ftp from the workout 6 weeks ago" or are the gains so small that it takes about 6 weeks for them to accumulate enough to a noticeable change?

---

Ride Scoozy Electric Bicycles
http://www.RideScoozy.com

I did a similar workout 6x4'x45" at 105%-108%. I found this harder at the end of #6 than the 2x17'x4' at 100% I was doing as my 2nd workout at the time. After 6 weeks I increased my FTP by 23w

Full aero setup - 11cm drop, 1080 front, rear wheel cover, EVO clinchers w/latex tubes, skinsuit, aero helmet, shoe covers...oh...and a "retro" 2003 entry level tri bike.

Been fulltime bike for two years after 5 years in tri's.

So your FTP on a road setup is 305 and on a TT bike it's 20-25% lower? My guess (and I'm just spitballing here) is that either your bike setups or testing procedures are highly incongruent. I'd propse a less aggressive TT setup to boost your power, but according to the data you provided your W/Cd can't be matched ..... by anyone. Props!

---

"The right to party is a battle we have fought, but we'll surrender and go Amish... NOT!" -Wayne Campbell

The low(er) FTP on my TT bike is probably due to the fact I don't ride the thing much. I have (self) tested my TT position and 11cm was the ideal drop for me...so I don't feel I am robbing power there. My road setup is 9cm drop iirc. Both tests were actual 1 hour efforts. The TT was an out/back and flat. The road test was a loop with hills so the power number is NP not average power (AP was maybe 285).

I honestly didn't realize my W/kg ratio of 2.88 for a 25mph 40k was that special... What are other peoples numbers for sub 60 minutes?

Damn I'm a freakin' brick compared to you. In a sprint tri 2 weeks ago, I averaged 25.1 mph for 18 miles, mostly flat course, but a few turns. Avg watts was 284, which is 3.75 w/kg! This is on a P3, with disc/808, tri suit, aero helmet, bare frame, zipp tires and latex tubes. I gotta be doing something wrong!

---

---

Fraser Bicycle | First Endurance

Check out my blog here | Twitter:@tmalis3

Update for those interested and a few followup questions:

So I've been following these workouts (mostly) for 2 1/2 weeks. My workouts have been 2 days of 2x20, 2 days of group riding (one being a very hard 90 minutes the other being a moderate hard 90 minutes) and 2 days of very easy 60 min spins. It has been a very hard few weeks with not much enjoyment...until today.
The 2x20's have not been fun. The first 4x doing them I saw moderate improvement with 2 and 1 was a suckfest. Today was my 5th go around and "boom" something clicked. My first set was @ 102% of FTP with my HR a full 14 beats lower than FTP HR. I rested for only 90 seconds and hit the second set @ 108% of FTP with HR at 3 beats lower than FTP HR. WTF? That was too easy?

Do I adjust my current "FTP" based on this one workout? Or do I wait for one more repeat occurance? Either way...how should I set my new FTP?

I am planning on racing again in 3 weeks and am planning on staying with this riding schedule - how should I adjust during the leadup?

FWIW - my overall speed during these workouts have been about 1.5mph less than full aero gear. (-Aero helmet, race wheels, skinsuit and shoe covers)

Thanks in advance.

In a word, no. There is enough day-to-day variation in performance (especially during routine training, vs. testing/competition) that you should wait until you can repeatedly match that performance before declaring that your functional threshold power has risen (although it does indeed sound as if it is headed upward.

It's the latter.

Congrats on the gains. See how you do on the 2x20s next time...tomorrow? Maybe adjust FTP to 95% of 108%, so ~2-3% higher than it was.

4 days in a row of hard work can be very hard. It is taxing for the body. If 4 ON + 2 OFF/EZ is too hard to recover from, then try 3+2. For me, I find I can do 4+2, but it is hard to string multiple together.

Stick with it until around 12 days to go, then start tapering things off. I'd suggest a day of rest on day 13 out and maybe day 14 too.

T-12: 20 minutes TT Effort...hard as balls.

T-11: 60-75 minutes easy with 20 minutes at 70% of FTP, ie pretty easy, but it keeps the blood moving.

T-10: Group ride, if you want. Crush it for around 30 minutes. Don't go longer than that though. NP should be nice and high, reach for NP > FTP.

T-9: 4x5:00 @ 110-112% of FTP. Descend 1-4. 3 Minutes rest. Warm-up and cool down, but don't ride extra over that.

T-8: 75-90 minutes, easy. Flat terrain desired. Add 20 minutes of 70% somewhere in there to get blood pumping.

T-7: OFF. Clean your bike. Check equipment. Get bike 100% setup for TT, and hop on trainer for 1-2 minutes to be sure everything is in working order. Enjoy the rest.

T-6: 3x10 @ 93%, 96%, 100% of FTP. 3 minutes rest between.

T-5: 25 minutes on rollers or trainer or super flat terrain at 60%

T-4: Indoors or easily controlled environment. 5:00 @ 100% + 1:00 EZ, 4 @ 105% +1, 3 @ 110% +1, 2 @110%+1, 1 @ 120%.

T-3: 10 min w/up. 15 min @ 60-65%. 5 min easy.

T-2: 6:00 @ 100-105 + 5 EZ + 3:00 @ 110% + 5 EZ + 1:00 HARD, HARD, HARD. Cool down. Workout should not be more than ~40-45 total.

T-1: OFF, rest legs and check gear.

T-0: RACE FAST

Don't add any glory or hero work in the final stretch. Its time to rest and prepare the body to go fast at that point. You're either going race pace, or race pace+, warming up, cooling down, or resting.

I think the question was asked, but I didn't see the response. On day 4, are you repeating day 1, and going through the cycle again? Thanks for posting this.

---

_______________________________________________

I was thinking the exact same thing...repeat the 2x20 tomorrow. The 2nd repeat today was near my "old" NP for 20k but still felt easy compared to how I feel in a real 20k TT. We'll see where it shakes out tomorrow.

The 4+2 has been definately something that would drive you to not like the bike :). That's why I threw in the group rides...sanity+hard efforts combined.

Thanks for the 12 day outlook - I should probably pay you some beer$$ for that! It looks WAY easier than I would normally do. Days 12-6 look ok...but I would seriously feel like I took 5 days off after that? No - I don't want to be a hero...but are 5 light days too many? I normally take T-3 off, T-2 is a 60 minute easy ride with 3-4 pick ups and T-1 is a 20-30 minute spin. Warmup race day is 45-50 minutes of varying efforts.

Again - thanks in advance!

Interesting. I find that I'm really hit or miss (mostly miss) the day after complete rest. I do best with a day off T-2, and then a nice shake-out on T-1. The shake-out would be something like your T-2.

I've also had good luck ("tapering" for an omnium) taking 2 days off midweek, and then opening up for the two days prior to the racing.

---

---

Erik
Strava

A couple of years back i had my FTP tested at Cadence Cycling as part of their Kona Challenge--it came in at 293 watts. At the time I weighed 163 pounds so this came to 3.9 w/kg. I think on a flat TT course the raw FTP is more relevant than the w/kg ratio. In any event, I was right on 60 minutes for 40k. I have a very aero TT bike, but I'm somewhat big and I'm old so presumably my drag coefficient is relatively high....

I know for sure if I had the power numbers of the OP I'd struggle to hit 62-63 minutes...

---

Randy Christofferson(http://www.rcmioga.blogspot.com

Insert Doubt. Erase Hope. Crush Dreams.

FWIW, that's really a pretty good full taper. Depends upon how much you want to rest. If you want to ensure you are properly rested, then you really need to rest. I've found that seems to work pretty well for me for a 20-40k effort when I'm fully tapering for the event.

As someone else mentioned, if you want to rest on T-2 and do a tune up on T-1, then go that route. Really its about what makes you comfortable knowing you are going to crush it.

You think wrongly. ;-)

In a flat TT, speed is closely related to power in W/CdA. CdA, however, is correlated with both stature and, to a somewhat lesser extent, mass. Thus, power expressed in W/kg is a better overall predictor of performance that W alone. The latter would not be true only if the correlation between CdA and mass were zero.

Since most people don't have a clue what their CdA is it seems that raw FTP is a more reasonable metric for most to use to compare/predict than w/kg, which was the original statement.

---

--------------
Frank,
An original Ironman and the Inventor of PowerCranks

Apparently you didn't read my post very closely: my point is that W/kg is a better surrogate for W/CdA than W alone.

Or to put it another way: you don't need to be smart enough to figure out your CdA, you just have to be smart enough to realize that bigger people typically have to push more air out of their way. :-)

EDIT: BTW, what happened to your client who was going to take a crack at one of the masters hour records? Seems like he's a perfect example of what I am talking about, i.e., high absolute power, lower relative to body size (mass), apparently not as fast as you seem to think he is...

???????????????????????????????

What AC is saying is that W/kg is a better proxy for W/CdA than W is a proxy for W/CdA. And he is right. Otherwise we would see Shaquille O'Neal crushing it in flat TTs.

Is O'Neal Frank's mystery client?!? I didn't know he rode a bike...

;-)

Now that Dr. Day showed up, the thread has jumped the shark, which is too bad, since people seemed to be deriving benefit from what people were saying.

Do you follow the base/build/peak/race philosophy or do you do some sort of continual progressive overload?

---

Ride Scoozy Electric Bicycles
http://www.RideScoozy.com

More the latter.

Rough modeling your data(2.88 w/kg, FTP 238) on a 40K flat no wind course yields a CdA of ~.225 at 59:50. Impressive that's your natural form. .225 is pretty slippery especially if you've not been to a tunnel or done some Chung analysis. How tall are you?

"...you should have a very good sense when an increase in FTP has occurred...There will be no one single indication."

Interesting Chris, interesting. A "sense"?

And to think so many of us here were under the impression that an athlete's FTP was the single indication of noting whether his or her FTP has increased. If I'm measuring a specific something, wouldn't I want to look at that specific measurement?!

Mostly in jest, I hope you know.

:)

Or, you don't need to worry about any of these numbers at all and you just train to go faster.

Oh, and about our track rider, he found out he needed a little more work (he lost some power - about 50 watts he says - while trying to work on his track riding skills) and a better track (no one will ever set a record a Colorado Springs me thinks). After all, this attempt was his first ever effort at riding a cycling "race". He was about 1 km/hr under the record speed and was having some asthma problems so aborted. He says he will attempt again next year. We will see.

---

--------------
Frank,
An original Ironman and the Inventor of PowerCranks

If I counted correctly, USA Cycling presently recognizes 116 records for timed events on the track, of which 63, or 54%, have been set in Colorado Springs. That includes the current US hour record of 51.505 km set there by Norm Alvis, whose performance topped Colby Pearce's prior record of 50.X km, also set in Colorado Springs.

(I didn't bother to look up how many current world records were set in Colorado Springs, but I know that a number of have been, as the US usually fields a pretty strong contigent of masters track cyclists, and master nationals has often been held there.)

Bottom line: the only way your client will go significantly faster at another track is if he encountered a particularly windy day in Colorado Springs, and/or if his power were reduced much more than average due to the altitude.

Whatever. He wasn't looking for the USA cycling record. Anyhow, unless you were there or have talked to him I don't think you are the best person to comment on how much and why his power was reduced over what he needed to set the record he was looking for. He is pretty motivated to achieve this goal and confident he can do it. Whether he can actually do it or not we will have to wait and see.

---

--------------
Frank,
An original Ironman and the Inventor of PowerCranks

Frank, Frank, Frank....if there are any topics that I know really well, they are the physics of TTing (including on a track) and the physiology of exercise (including the effects of altitude). That's why a number of people interested in pursuing hour records (masters and otherwise) have sought my advice on where to best make such an attempt.